Grace to you; grace be with you

Piper points out in Future Grace something important about the way Paul begins and ends almost all his letters to the churches. I am currently reading through Ephesians right now, which serves as a perfect example of Paul's typical saluations....

Ephesians begins with the phrase "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ" (1:2).

Then Paul ends his letter to the Ephesians with this line: "Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible" (6:24).

Notice that I bolded the prepositions "to" and "with." Piper points out that these small words are very important to the way God's grace works through Scripture.

Piper explains that as Paul begins his letters, he must realize that the written words will be God's grace to those who read them. Piper imagines Paul thinking as he writes his letter, "grace is now active and is about to flow from God through my inspired writing to you as you read - grace [be] to you." Then when Paul is about to end his letter, he realizes that the flow of God's grace through written words is about to end, but because God is so good, there must be another form of grace to sustain the readers once they are done reading. When the question rises, "What becomes of the grace that has been flowing to the readers through the reading of the inspired letter?" Paul answers with a blessing, "Grace [be] with you." This is the grace that is "With you as you go home to deal with a sick child and an unaffectionate spouse. With you as you go to work and face the temptations of anger and dishonesty and lust. With you as you muster the courage to speak up for Christ over lunch." This is how God's grace remains with us each and every day.

This is the beauty of reading and being filled by God's word. His grace comes to us through the Scriptures and it remains with us as it transforms our minds, softens our hearts, and fills us with the Spirit, changing the way we act and think and talk every single day. But Piper says it better than I ever will: "We learn that grace is ready to flow to us every time we take up the inspired Scriptures to read them. And we learn that grace will abide with us when we lay the Bible down and go about our daily living."

Fill yourself with the riches of God's grace in His Word and pour out His grace on others because He has promised His grace is with you where ever you go...

Future Grace

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am currently reading John Piper's Future Grace and it is soooo good. However, I am reading it very slowly, partially because Piper needs to be read slowly and partially because my school workload is way too demanding right now to read for fun...

But anyway the book is awesome. I highly recommend it and I might share some quotes from it from time to time. Here is the first one...

"The only debt that grace creates is the 'debt' of relying on more grace for all that God calls us to be and do..."

~J.Piper

The Grace to Endure

I just started reading a book by John Piper called Future Grace. I am only a little ways in, but it's good, as all John Piper's books are, of course. Briefly, this book is about what it looks like for Christians to live obedient, fruitful lives (a theme I am always wanting to learn more about if you haven't noticed yet). The premise of this book is that we are obedient to God, not because of gratitude, but because of love, and that we obey not becuase of his faithfulness in the past, but because we have faith in the grace he will give us in the future. Piper, of course, does not say that God's past grace is unimportant or that we should not be thankful. He only points out that we will never continue to be obedient in the future if we don't have faith in God's future grace that he will provide both on this earth and in heaven. Thankfulness for the past is not enough to stir morality is pitiful sinners. Like I said, it's good. I am giving you this intro on the book in case I share anything else from it over these next few weeks or months.

So I was reading Piper's chapter on anxiety in the book (because apparently my breathing troubles might be caused by anxiety...yuck...want to get that sin out of my life ASAP), and I stumbled across this beautiful, intriguing phrase..."the grace to endure." Piper was talking about the fear of public speaking that haunted him throughout his childhood and into college. It seems almost funny now, as he is one of the most well known pastors in America, but he was plagued by anxiety about speaking in public for years and years. Like shaky voice, shaky hands, all the kids in the class and the teacher felt bad for him kind of anxiety. And he said he prayed hundreds of prayers for help during those years and God only provided the grace to endure...

The grace to endure. What a humbling, intriguing idea. Sometimes God doesn't answer our prayers how we want him to or when we want him to. However, he gives us the strength to keep going despite our trials. Our very lives are a mark of God's grace, so if life is hard, and God gives us the strength to keep going and keep trusting in Him, despite hardship, that is God's grace in our lives. We don't deserve endurance.

This phrase led me to the Bible, where I read all I could about enduring and endurance. Here are a few of the things I found...

Luke 21:19 "By your endurance you will gain your lives." Jesus is telling his disciples about the hardships they will endure as his followers after he leaves earth. He says they will be mocked, hated, and possibly even killed, but their endurance in persecution is a mark of their salvation.

Romans 5:3-5 "More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." Love these verses. So not only do we not deserve to endure, but God uses endurance to strengthen and sanctify us. Endurance results in character and character produces hope. The result of endurance is hope in God - and his future grace.

I Peter 2:19-20 "Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust. For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God." The context of this verse is a command for slaves to be subject to their masters. But this is a truth for all believers. We are to endure suffering, even when we suffer for doing good. This is a mark of God's grace in our lives, because it shows that we are following the example of Christ, and God looks on this kind of endurance with favor and blessing.

Hebrews: 12:1-2 "Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God." Here our lives are compared to a race that must be run with perserverance all the way to the finish line. Anyone with running background knows that races are not easy. Race day means you push your body to perform at your maximum level. Races are hard, but it is exciting to finish them well. Here Jesus is, again, the example of the model racer. His race included a cross right before the finish line... He endured more than we can imagine and finished his race perfectly so the rest of us could finish our races with endurance as well.

How is God giving you the grace to endure today? How is this producing hope in your life?

A Favorite Verse

Yesterday, I got to read one of my favorite passages in the Bible - Titus 2:11-14. This passage has been such an encouragement to me over the past three years or so, and it was read at our wedding this past summer. It's such a beautiful, concise example of what it truly means to live a gospel life. I've always gotten so much out these four short verses of the Bible, but the ESV editors give it even more meaning.

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

~Titus 2:11-14~

Grace - "One cannot truly claim to be a recipient of saving grace without also being a pupil of 'training grace'." This is one of the biggest changes in my life in recent years. I have always claimed to know God's saving grace, but only recently have I come under his "training grace" - where my life daily reflects my love of Him above all other things. This verse is all about what life actually looks like in the day to day for those who have been touched by God's gospel of grace - Jesus Christ.

Eager expectation - The Greek for the term "waiting" in this verse is "prosdechomai" and it carries the connotation of eagerness. As I get to know my great God and Savior Jesus more and more, I eagerly wait for the day I will see his face and know Him more than I do now.

Holiness - "To forsake Godliness is to despise the sacrifice of Christ." The purpose of Christ's sacrifice was to make his people holy, so that we can appear before our Father in heaven. If I don't strive to be holy and obedient to Christ, I am despising what he did for me on the cross. Because Christ died, I have His Spirit, and therefore I have the ability to say "NO" to ungodliness and "yes" to righteousness.

A Prized Possession - Does it ever strike you as amazing that God loves us? I mean, He actually treasures us, even though we are defiant, needy, dirty failures. God wants us to be his possession, and the connotation in the Greek is a "prized, treasured possession." God enjoys His people. God enjoys me and loves me and values me. It humbles me each and every day.

Zealous for good works - Because of Christ's example of service and ultimate sacrifice for us, we should be doing good works for others. There is no excuse not to live a life of service. My life is completely lacking in this area. I cannot believe how little I serve when I have a servant God who gave everything for me. This quote from the ESV editors is convicting: "There is no room for claiming to be redeemed while providing no evidence of practical transformation." You should be able to see my redemption in the good works I do every day. I have so much to learn...but I have a God who has already saved me and keeps me in training day after day.